One of my favorite of slasher-style tales is where you get to see the crime from the killer’s point of view. Being able to get a glimpse into the mind of a serial killer to find out what makes them do what they do so brutally as well as the lengths they’ll go to remain hidden. I thought Sepultura would be a good one to try, and the results were mixed.

Dyson Devereux works in the Burials and Cemeteries Department and is a very meticulous person in his tastes, fashion, food, and drink. He has a son with Rakesha, an ex-girlfriend he still has a physical relationship with, and is very much a player when it comes to women in general. He is a judgmental person who not only looks down his nose at those he believes are beneath him because of how they dress or carry themselves. His interactions with these people give you an idea of his level of sociopathic tendencies. One of those individuals is Rakesha’s boyfriend, who Dyson refers to as Free Lunch. He hates Dyson but has no problem living off the money he provides for Rakesha and their son.

When Free Lunch gets physically confrontational, you see just how efficient of a killer Dyson is. He kills the younger man and cleans up enough of the mess to immediately spend time with one of his girlfriends in bed. Like most serial killers, he has a plan on disposing of the body and takes a souvenir to remember the act. As the story continues, you see his talent at making people disappear first hand. He gets rattled only a couple of times when he runs across people who bear a likeness to some of his previous victims but is cool when it comes to speaking with the police. It isn’t the only murder in the book, but it best illustrates just how much thought he puts into his crimes.

As I said in the beginning, I have mixed feelings regarding this book. It is the second book in the series, but the story stands alone well. You don’t need to have read the first book, Necropolis, to know anything about Dyson Devereux’s character. I can say that I wasn’t a fan of his, but because of his arrogance, pretentiousness, and disdain for people. That shows how good of a writer Guy Portman is. Dyson is one of those main characters who you either love, hate, or love to hate. Some people likened him to Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, a comparison that seems a good fit. I liked the attention to detail of viewing people he looks down on as not people, but things. With some, the only given names are the labels of what he dislikes about them.

One of the things I disliked about the book, however, is the dialog written with very heavy accents. It worked well for some, like the Italians, but made understanding others practically impossible. Multiple times I had to reread sentences to decipher what the character said. Also, how Dyson establishes himself as being above everyone else felt overdone at times. The ending felt kind of rushed as well.

Overall, I thought the book was okay, but not exactly a home run. If you can get past the heavy Cockney style accents and the heavy-handed descriptions, you will enjoy this book. If you can’t, then you might want to skip this one or go for an audio version. I recommend it for those American Psycho and Dexter fans out there.

As lovers of horror, we are misunderstood and stereotyped by people who aren’t fans of the macabre. Horror writers tend to face that stereotype even more so than the average horror fan at times. People think that we love the ugly side of life, that we yearn to act out in the ways we describe in our stories simply because that’s how we think and spin a tale. When horrible things happen, it’s not entirely clichéd to think a lover or creator of fright might be involved in some way. Author James Newman tackles that very fear in his book, “Animosity”.

Andrew Holland is a horror writer that lives in a very picturesque neighborhood. His neighbors are fascinated and excited to have a best-selling author living among them, at least until he makes a horrifying discovery. While out walking his dog, Andrew stumbles across the body of a girl around his daughter’s age. At first, there is the normal excitement and fear you might expect when a vicious crime like that occurs. People begin to wonder who the murderer might be, whether they are still in the area, or worse, is it one of their own? It is only a short span of time before the neighbors start behaving differently towards him. It becomes painfully obvious that everyone he once considered a friend now thinks him a monster because he writes about them.

I liked this story because of how it played with the fear most people in a similar setting have today. Is the kind man down the street really a nice guy, or is it an act to cover some heinous crime or depravity. With serial killers like Ted Bundy and the BTK, that fear is justified. I think that, for the most part, the turn of the people in the neighborhood was handled in a fairly believable fashion. There were a couple of people whose actions didn’t seem to fit all that well because it seemed to go completely against the nature of their character. Also, the way the news seemed to focus their reports of the crime on Andrew and his past seemed an artificial way to make him feel persecuted.

Listen to HorrorAddicts.net #95 where we quiz author Mimi Williams on the movie Masque of Red Death.
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